Escape, the Complete Trilogy

by David Antocci

  Donny tracked down an address and a phone number for the sister in New York. Abby had no idea why she was there. He also got Abby a disposable phone. They didn’t want her sister’s number showing up on her phone bills, or Donny’s for that matter. If it was going to work, Bryce had to remain unaware she existed. The problem was that in an age when everyone had caller ID, people wouldn’t answer calls from numbers they didn’t know. She had hoped to at least hear her sister’s voice, but it was just a generic greeting with no option to leave a message.

  So, she decided to write a letter. It was brief. They hadn’t spoken in eight years, since their falling out after their Mom and Dad passed away. Abby made no effort to document her life story since that time. She gave the basics, though. She was a mother, her daughter was in grave danger and needed a place to go. Would she be willing to take her in?

  Don’t do it for me, Abby wrote. Ava is a smart and beautiful little girl that deserves a chance to lead a life better than I can ever give her. Please, do it for her. She left no return address – only the number to the disposable phone.

  Days went by, which turned into weeks, and Abby hadn’t heard a thing. Her sister had likely written her off long ago and trashed the letter as soon as she realized who it was from. Finally, more than a month later, she received a voicemail on the throwaway phone. It was a very simple – “We need to talk” – followed by a phone number.

  Abby called her back, and they spoke for hours. Her sister had worried about her for years. She was sorry that she had never returned Abby’s calls after their fight. She was so angry at her, and truth be told, she was a little lost herself. She went off to find herself and moved all over the country before settling down. By the time she had her head on straight and tried to track down Abby a year later, all she ever came up with were dead ends. She had long feared Abby was dead.

  Abby wondered why she didn’t call back right away this time, if what she said was true. “Why did it take so long to hear from you if you were so worried about me?”

  “Your letter went to an old address, and it took quite awhile to find its way to my new home. I’m not even in the country anymore. We’re in Saint-Colbert, a suburb north of Montreal.”

  “Canada?” Abby was taken aback for a moment and briefly had second thoughts about sending Ava away. We won’t even be in the same country?

  “About your letter... of course we’ll take Ava, but what about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve got a plan.” She lied; she had no plan. “I just need to make sure she’s safe first.”

  “Abby, this whole thing is crazy. It sounds like the plot of a movie. What’s the problem with just going to the police and pressing charges against this guy?”

  Abby laughed. Not a light chuckle, but a hardy laugh, “Sarah, Bryce owns the police. If he did kill us, he’s got a dozen officers on payroll that would help bury the bodies. I’ve got to get Ava out of here. This is perfect. He doesn’t know you exist, and you’re out of the country. We’ve just got to figure out how to get her to you.”

  Abby called Donny with the good news. It was great news as far as he was concerned. Bryce had no presence or connections that he knew of in Canada. It wasn’t his turf. They could move Ava there, change her name, and let her start over. “I still think you both should go. He would never find you.”

  “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Donny. He absolutely would. He would find me. He would never stop looking until he did.”

  20

  ABBY DISCOVERED that moving Ava out of the country was not a fast process. It could have been, though.

  She had worried about how they would obtain a fake passport for Ava. However, a little research revealed that she only needed proof of citizenship to cross the border, as she was under sixteen years old. The Canadian birth certificate was the easiest thing in the world to forge. When it was time, Donny did it himself, in an hour, at his home.

  The airline ticket was simple enough, too. They used cash to buy a prepaid debit card, then used the card to buy the ticket. The purchase was made at a public computer in the library. Not that Bryce would ever attempt to find out where his daughter was, but if he did, there would be no trace of any kind; no paper or electronic trail to follow. Again, it was done over the course of an afternoon.

  It could have been a fast process, but it wasn’t.

  Abby agonized for weeks over the decision. She had dedicated the past several years of her life to her little Ava, teaching her to walk and talk. Reading stories before bedtime; snuggling on the couch with a bowl of popcorn to watch movies. Hospital stays, runny noses, and all the things that mothers do.

  In addition to the usual parenting responsibilities, she had devoted herself to protecting her angel from the demon that lived in their home.

  The thought of no longer having her little girl under her own roof was overwhelming for Abby. Letting a child go was more than most parents could bear, and for someone like Abby, it was nearly an impossible request. Donny’s words continued to play back through her mind, though, and he was right. Keeping Ava here, in this life with her, was a selfish act. Ava could start a new life, a better life, than Abby could ever provide.

  After steeling herself, she called Donny on her prepaid phone. “How fast can we get this done? I need it quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

  He knew precisely what she was talking about, and absolutely knew they had to move quickly before she had a chance to change her mind again. “If you’re ready – within twenty-four hours, maybe faster.”

  Abby was holding her breath, eyes closed. This was a moment that was about to change her life, and Ava’s, forever.

  “Abby?”

  She breathed. “Do it.”

  “Call your sister.”

  She clicked off the call and immediately dialed Sarah before she had a chance to think anymore. “It’s happening,” she said.

  “Oh, thank God! When?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll call you with the details.”

  Abby remained completely detached from the decision. She tapped into a reserve she did not know she possessed. She had to be strong. She needed Ava to remember her as a strong woman who protected her, so she would grow up to be the same. She also could not let Ava know that she was upset. After all, the entire plan hinged on getting this little girl onto an airplane on her own. The airline would have an escort to see that she made it from A to B, but she had to see this as a fun adventure. If she begged and screamed for mommy, Abby was not sure she could follow through.

  She couldn’t remember much of the final goodbye.

  She knew that she was strong and didn’t cry.

  Neither did Ava.

  She remembered she lied. Abby told the little girl that she was going to visit her auntie, and that they would see each other soon.

  “How soon, Mommy?”

  “Before you know it, sweetie.” Abby smiled and kissed her on the head, praying for the strength to let her go without a scene.

  Abby remembered the little navy blue dress with lace around the collar, sleeves, and skirt. It was Ava’s favorite dress, and she had picked it out to wear on the flight. It was a very special occasion, and she wanted to look her best.

  She remembered the tight hug and the lump in her throat as she squeezed her little girl one last time.

  She remembered her bright pink backpack and matching pink beret as she walked away, hand in hand with the very friendly female flight attendant who couldn’t have been any older than Abby.

  She remembered how their eyes met one last time as Ava smiled and waved before turning the corner and walking down the jet way to board the plane.

  She remembered that she barely made it to the nearest trashcan before vomiting. When she had nothing left in her stomach, the tears came. Donny put his arm around her in a hopeless attempt to console the inconsolable.

  * * *

  Abby’s eyes opened in her dimly lit room at Robert’s estate. Dr. Lee was sitting next to her looking
over a computer display. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She just closed her eyes again and shook her head no.

  Robert was sitting next to her, asleep.

  She wasn’t waking from a dream – she was slowly realizing that her life was, in fact, a nightmare.

  The last year of her life, now that was a dream. The perfect life she had created with Eric was the dream. No wonder I told myself not to have my memory restored. Abby silently wondered if it was too late to change her mind.

  Abby didn’t feel right. She reached down and placed her hands over her stomach, realizing how hungry she was. How long have I been out?

  As if hearing her thoughts Dr. Lee answered, “It’s been about twelve hours. You should eat something.”

  Robert’s eyes fluttered open, “What’s that now?” He looked at the doctor, and then saw that Abby was awake and leaned over the side of the bed. “How are you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Is that everything? How come I don’t remember how I got here?”

  “We’re not done yet,” Dr. Lee said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Ava... she...” Abby broke down sobbing as it all came rushing back again. Robert brought her close, and she buried her face in his chest.

  “Let’s take a break, Abby. Eric is here. Do you want to see him?”

  She didn’t know why, but she shook her head. “No, I’m not ready. Can we just keep going?” Her hands were still on her stomach.

  “You should really eat something,” Dr. Lee said.

  “You’re probably right. I’m not feeling well at all.”

  “That’s normal.”

  Robert had a couple slices of toast and a glass of orange juice brought to the room. Abby ate, but still felt empty because the emptiness wasn’t in her stomach – it was in her heart. Until this past year, it was an emptiness that she had walked around with for quite some time.

  * * *

  Bryce stared into Abby’s eyes across the small two-person table that they occupied toward the back of the quaint Italian restaurant. “Isn’t this great?”

  Abby smiled back and sipped her wine. “Thank you, it is.” She leaned across the table and kissed him, but felt nothing. Ava had been gone for two months, and Abby was hollow inside. She had told Bryce at the time that she understood their lives were better without her, and she had sent her to live with her parents in California. Not that he ever cared, asked, or met them, but her parents were in California. They just were not alive. She simply hoped he never would be concerned enough to follow up.

  She was miserable. Having spent the first several weeks crying herself to sleep, she finally decided to remove all traces of Ava from their home. She boxed up her clothes, toys, and anything else that belonged to her little girl. She couldn’t ship it. That would leave a paper trail leading right to her. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it out either, so she stored everything in the large storage closet they were assigned in the basement.

  Sometimes she would go down there when he wasn’t around, pull out Ava’s clothes, and bury her face in them to remember her smell.

  Abby was a small woman. When she was at 125 pounds, she had a great, healthy figure. At 115, she was skinny, and her ribs poked through. As she sat there poking her salad with a fork, she was barely one hundred. If she cared enough to step on a scale in the morning without clothes on, she would have weighed in at ninety-eight that day. She looked sick. Even at the height of her drug problems she was never so skinny. Her chest had all but disappeared, her cheeks were concave, and the constant dark circles around her eyes only accentuated their sunken look.

  But she belonged fully to Bryce, and he didn’t seem to notice what bad shape she was in. He reached across the table and held her hand. “This is the life.” He smiled.

  Later that night, when they got home, he had his way with her. In the morning, she got up an hour before him to make his breakfast and lay out his clothes. She then spent the day taking care of the house and doing his errands. This went on day after day. For the first few weeks, she had tortured herself by calling her sister to talk to Ava. She was always in worse shape afterwards. Finally her sister said that the calls made Ava very upset, too, so they stopped.

  Abby instead spent all of her time on Bryce, and the house, making sure everything was perfect. When she found herself with free time, she would sit and cry for a while. Sometimes Bryce would stop in during the afternoon; sometimes he wouldn’t. He would call to tell her what time to have dinner ready, if that’s what he was expecting when he got home.

  She lived her days to serve him. To be an obedient wife who had no other purpose in life than to see that he was taken care of. He doesn’t want a wife, she thought. He wants a mother. This is how her life went on for the months after Ava left.

  She rarely saw Donny. She couldn’t see him without thinking of Ava, and finally she asked him to stop coming around. He understood and obliged for a while, but after a few weeks, he began calling on the phone. Abby said that was all right at first, but after she stopped speaking to Ava on the phone, she wanted to stop speaking to Donny, too.

  He respected that. “I’ll do anything to make this easier on you. If you change your mind, you can always reach out to me. You know that, right?”

  “I do, Donny, and I will. I just need some time, OK?”

  That was the last time they spoke for a couple of months. The next time they did, Abby was walking back from the grocery store on the corner of their block when Donny drove by. She looked up when she heard the screeching of his tires as his car came to a stop in the middle of the road. He jumped out of the running car, without even pulling it to the side of the road, and ran over to her.

  “Abby?”

  She smiled uncomfortably. “Donny, hi.”

  He did nothing to disguise the horrified look on his face. “Oh, my God, Abby. Are you sick? What’s wrong?”

  She laughed it off. “I’m fine.” She looked down at her baggy clothes, a tank top and light sweatshirt that she would have amply filled out a few months ago. “I guess I’ve lost a little weight, but, you know, I haven’t been myself.”

  As he looked into her eyes, he noticed that their usual light brown glow had faded to a sad gray, and he fought back the tears that started to well up in his own eyes. “You can’t live like this.”

  She shook her head, unwilling to admit anything was wrong. “I’m fine, Donny. I’ve got to go make dinner. Bryce will be home in an hour.”

  He wouldn’t let go of her shoulders, “What can I do?”

  Her own eyes filled with tears. “Nothing, Donny. Nothing.”

  “Well, you can’t go on like this. Look at you!”

  “Yeah, look at me!” she yelled. “Look at me! This is not what I want for Ava, but you said it yourself – she’s better off out there, away from this life.” Abby shook her head, “I just wish I could forget about her, you know? Forget that she’s out there. Forget she even exists. Forget that everything exists. Vegas, Bryce, Ava, all of it. I’d give anything to start over again, but I can’t. Now get out of my way. I’ve got to get dinner ready before he gets home.”

  Donny had nothing to say. He simply watched her walk away down the street.

  Despite the career path he had chosen, or more appropriately, had been chosen for him by his father, he wasn’t a career criminal. He had even gone to college for a year to study film and television. That hadn’t worked out for him, but his old roommate had a pretty good gig working for one of the big networks out in L.A. What Abby had just said sparked an idea for Donny. It was a long shot, and frankly, he had no hope that it would ever work out. But if there was a chance that Abby could move on and be happy, he was willing to take it.

  He took out his phone and punched up the number, which immediately went to voicemail. “Hey, Seth, it’s Donny. Listen, I’ve got to talk to you about something. Give me a ring when you have a second. It’s important.”

  As Abby w
alked back to her building, she turned and saw Donny talking on the phone as he got back into his car. She didn’t know it, but he was making a phone call that was going to change her life in ways she never could have imagined.

  21

  “OF COURSE I’ve heard of it,” Abby said as she walked into the kitchen. She had missed Donny’s visits, and when he had showed up out of the blue, she couldn’t turn him away. “Who hasn’t? Why?”

  “How would you like to be on it?” Donny asked, sitting at the counter.

  Abby laughed. “Trial Island? You’re serious? I wouldn’t last a day.”

  He wasn’t laughing. “You said you want to forget everything that’s happened in the past ten years, right? They can do that, Abby. It’s part of the deal.”

  “Yes, I know it’s part of the deal. It’s part of the deal for those lunatics they get on the show.”

  “You could be one of those lunatics, Abby.”

  “Now you’re just talking crazy. You’ve seen the people on that show, right? They’re in great shape. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been better. Besides, there have got to be thousands of people trying to get on. I’m the last one they’d take.”

  “I can’t guarantee you’ll get on the show, but I can get you a shot.”

  “Anyone can get a shot, Donny. I’ve watched the audition tapes on cable. They say they get them by the thousands, and we only see what, the top one hundred? Trust me, I’m not in the top one hundred. Even if I was, I’d wind up dead.”

  “Listen, I’ve got a friend that’s the assistant to one of the producers. He owes me. If we make a tape, he says he can get you in the top fifty for women. What happens from there is up to you.”

  Abby froze. “Seriously?”

  “Think about it. You’ll get away from here, this life, and you’ll forget everything.”

  She shook it off. “Look at me.” She held up the sweater that hung off her shoulders not as a fashion statement, but to demonstrate that she was only a fraction of her former self. “Thanks for trying to help, but it’s useless.”